Lots. It's part of my job.

That's not how a coke addict in withdrawal behaves. I'm wondering now if *you've* ever seen one.

Not that many, because LSD isn't a commonly used drug in Chicago, as far as I know. It's out there, but I would suppose it represents less than 0.01% of the drug use in this town. How many have *you* taken care of?

The trouble with audio-over-Bluetooth is that it introduces latency. So, there go several different use cases. Want to do multitrack recording? Sorry, you can't because the track you are playing along with is reaching your ears 20 ms too late. Want to plug a MIDI keyboard into the phone, so you can use the built-in sounds from Garageband? Want to use any one of the "virtual instrument" apps that you play using the touchscreen (there must be hundreds of these)? Get ready for a 20-ms delay between hitting the key and hearing a sound.

In Chicago, you can be living "one zip code away from an affluent neighborhood" and still be living in one of the worst f*cking ghettos in the US. (e.g. Austin, Woodlawn...) Rents may be cheap but it's hardly a bargain...

This is not an uncommon argument, even among physicians. But there's a simple rebuttal, in my view: Giving a placebo conflicts with the patient's right to be informed.

Patients deserve accurate and unbiased information about the risks and benefits of every medicine they are offered. Indeed, at every clinic I've worked in, the patient signs a form stating "I have been informed about the risks and benefits of this medication" (or words to that effect). If I give a patient a treatment that I know for certain is useless- let's say, a sugar pill that is dummied up to look like a prescription medication-- then I would have to inform the patient that I know the treatment to be useless. It's not OK for me to withhold that information, or to keep secrets from the patient, even if I think it's "for their own good".

(There's one exception to this rule: If the patient is enrolled in a clinical trial, they can be randomly assigned to receive either active treatment or placebo. But that's a special case, with special rules. And even in those cases the patient must be told about the process of randomization and how it works).

It *is* OK to give treatments when the evidence that it works is weak, or dubious, or where we just don't know if it is an effective treatment or not. Sometimes, when the risk of the treatment is minimal, that can be a reasonable thing to do (I'm thinking of, for example, folate supplementation for clinical depression). But you have to be honest with the patient about what you're doing.

People over 45 (like myself) tend to think that learning to operate a computer is an educational experience. It isn't. It was at least mildly educational when we were kids... because the first thing you saw when you hit the "on" switch was a shell for a BASIC interpreter, or something similar. Now the first thing you see are *pictures*, which you point at, like a three-year-old at a candy store.

Even as late as the mid-90s, you would hear a lot of talk about "computer literacy"-- the idea that operating a computer was a core skill, like reading and writing. You don't hear that phrase much any more, "computer literacy". You might as well speak of "microwave literacy" or "Netflix literacy". Yes, there is technically some "learning" involved when you fire up a microwave or Netflix-- you do need to learn which buttons to push-- but it's a tiny area of knowledge which doesn't lead to anything else. And the same is true, I think, of video games.

At the moment, I work with a lot of inner-city teenagers (most of them from seriously dysfunctional homes and communities, most of them "educated" by Chicago Public Schools). ALL of them have computers, tablets, phones. ALL of them can operate their devices like a champion (and most of them love video games). Not one of them, so far, has become a computer programmer.

If you want to get upmods and replies on Slashdot, the key is to post *early*. I know this is kind of obvious, but it is very much true in my experience. I would guess that at least 80% of comments are made within the first 8-12 hours of a story going live. Once the story has fallen off the "front page"-- forget it. Either people have moved on to other stories, or else the story has accumulated 500+ comments and your own contribution is going to be buried.

In other words... is it possible that you're just not posting comments fast enough (as a result of having a job or a life or whatever), and that's why fewer people are responding?

I've used that line a few times with collection agencies, and they *always* say "if you are recording we will terminate the call". Evidently it's OK for them to record, but not for me.

What they've done to the mobile site is far far worse. It now features intrusive banner ads that take up 20% of the screen and WILL NOT GO AWAY. You can't scroll past them, you can't close them. (Also, the disable-ads option is gone). I didn't care that much about the earlier changes, but this is the change that is literally going to drive me away from Slashdot.

Yes, but at least with human beings, you can argue that we are born with certain flaws. We're genetically predisposed to be aggressive, violent, selfish, and perhaps racist as well. Even the kindest, most moral person ever to walk the earth has presumably had some thoughts and impulses which were not very admirable.

Christians blame it on "original sin", I blame it on genetics, but it's the same idea. And my point was... how do we know that an AI would have the same flaws?

Christianity is based on the premise that we are born in a state of sin, and that Christ needs to "save" us from our fallen state. Redemption by the blood of the lamb, and all that jazz.

So what the f*ck did our hypothetical, newly-created AI do that requires an act of redemption? How does Reverend Benek know that this not-yet-invented AI needs to be saved? Maybe it will be created in a state of perfect grace and enlightenment. No lamb's blood needed.

It's a rare occasion when "fuck your mother" is the most appropriate and insightful response possible. However, this appears to be exactly such an occasion. Dear Pope: Fuck your mom and fuck the Catholic Church, too. I'll be waiting in the parking lot if you want to do anything about it.

Yes, the record stores are mostly gone (still a few in Chicago but they're better suited for browsing than for finding a specific item), and yes, record sales were usually not a big moneymaker for the artist. Still. You can buy almost any music you can think of online-- and today the artist just might earn a healthy percentage off that sale. (Not always, but it's more common than it used to be).

I do understand that sometimes you may want to cue up a piece of music *right now*, without wanting to buy it, but that's what youtube is for. (Still ripping off the artist, but at least youtube does not exist for the *sole* purpose of ripping off artists).

Novels don't have a shuffle option, either. The songs are in that order for a reason, or at least they should be! I'd hate to listen to Sgt. Pepper's on "shuffle"... Also $10 per record isn't necessarily such a "low price" for vinyl anymore... a lot of people just want to get rid of their LPs, and will sell them to you by the boxload.

In the case of Spotify, it's not even a tenth of a cent; it's more like a quarter of a tenth of a cent. (Put it another way: a MILLION plays, which most musicians would be lucky to see once in a lifetime, nets you about $250).

The Wikipedia article on Spotify is worth reading, if you really want to understand how insanely f*cked up the Spotify business model is. Out of respect for the professional musicians I know, I *will not* use Spotify or similar services. I'd rather donate money to the Illinois Nazi Party than give Spotify my business.